New quenched and tempered plates from Tata Steel

Tata Steel, Europe’s second-largest steel producer, has extended its quenched and tempered Abrazo plate product range with guaranteed impact toughness properties.

The plates are designed for the aggregates, quarrying and mining industries with thicknesses of up to 130 mm. They can be used in wear applications where equipment is used at very low temperatures or where impact toughness is required. Tata Steel’s wear resistant plate offers 400 and 450 Brinell hardness.

The product development follows a €23 million investment in Tata Steel’s Clydebridge and Dalzell sites over the last three years. The investment has strengthened the company’s product range, providing the lifting and excavating equipment industry with a range of plate products suitable for demanding wear or structural applications.

The roller-quenched steel has been developed over a number of years through Tata Steel’s relationships with its customers in the mining, quarrying and construction industries. The addition of new equipment and processes in Scotland has enhanced production capacity, as well as capabilities, for instance key parameters like furnace atmosphere can be accurately controlled, leading to improvements in surface finish. Furthermore, the investment has enabled an increase in finished plate width – up to as much as 3200 mm on request – meaning larger components can be produced by customers in one piece and manufacturing processes, such as nesting, are optimised. Additionally, the quenching and tempering capacity has been increased by 50% to 160,000 tpa, following the investment. A wide range of stamping and marking options are available, including new automatic stamping.

Phil Clements, Head of Lifting & Excavating, said: “Tata Steel’s partnership approach ensures that we really know what customers in the surface mining industry need. In line with this approach our recent investments have been designed to further improve our Abrazo® and RQT® product portfolio, which now offers high impact toughness for demanding wear applications.”

The investment included the installation of a new heavy-plate press at Dalzell, which has significantly increased the site’s capacity to provide very thick plate with particular flatness qualities as required by customers. The final plate product can be supplied in the as-processed, shotblasted and primed conditions.

In Germany, meanwhile, the complete range of quenched and tempered Abrazo® and RQT® products is now easily available via the subsidiary Blume Stahlservice, located in Mülheim an der Ruhr.

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcoal.com/product-news/05092014/new-quenched-and-tempered-plates-from-tata-steel-pr39/